QuickSpotReview

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You know, a game about drawing circles isn't as stale as it might sound.

By Craig Harris

QuickSpot is, at its very, very basic, the virtual version of those "spot the differences" challenges you find on the back of Denny's placemats, or in those half-doodled Highlights magazines on the racks at the dentists office. You know the ones, where you get two images that look almost identical but have subtle changes that must be found. QuickSpot, however, clearly aimed at a much more mature crowd, namely the Brain Age demographic that Nintendo so desperately wants to pursue. So while the game concept is simple, the challenge is not. And more importantly, there's enough in this product for a good few hours of enjoyment and the occasional spontaneous play, which fits the budget price the game's been given.

In QuickSpot, you're faced with the challenge of catching the subtle differences between two portraits: on the top screen, you'll be faced with an image, and on the bottom a near duplicate will appear simultaneously. Using quick wits, a sharp eye, and a speedy drawing hand, the task is simply to circle that difference. Catch it, and you'll move on to the next image. Sound easy? Sure, from the start. And then as you get deeper in the challenge you'll have to do the matching after scratching a covering off the touch screen like a lottery ticket, or blowing leaves up off the lower screen up to the top screen and circling before they settle back down.

This concept is simple, but what's going on in the background is anything but. As you're performing the challenge, the game's calculating all sorts of elements, such as how fast you spotted the difference, how relaxed your drawn circle was (did it connect), how fast you drew your circle, and how accurate the circle's shape was in relation to the object that you circled. After the round's over, the game will tally up the results in a very "Brain Age" like grid, giving the illusion that you're strengthening your mind by matching up the different pictures. Without scientific backing I can't say for sure if this game will really fire up the synapses the way Nintendo or Namco claims these games do, but at the very least the grid gives a nice encouragement to keep playing, just so you can improve on the flat-lined attributes.

Within the QuickSpot cartridge are dozens upon dozens of portraits doodled up by the various game development teams at Namco. You'll find original pieces of art as well as pictures from games under the Namco umbrella. Obviously Namco had to draw the line somewhere, no pun intended -- even with the huge assortment of images, you'll stumble on the same picture multiple times throughout the game, so there will be times where, eventually, you'll know exactly where the differences are simply through memorization. But perhaps that's not such a bad thing, considering "memory" is also a function of the brain and the game is stimulating that portion of the mind by bringing up the same image multiple times. Luckily, most portraits will have three, four, five, or more variations -- the differences won't always be the same in the repeat of the image.

And though the core of the game is about matching portraits quickly, there's a large assortment of game variations to unlock. There are games where you have to match differences on huge scrolling banners, or find a piece of a puzzle that doesn't belong, or even try to circle a part of an object that wouldn't belong if that object was completely disassembled. There's a lot of clever ideas for a concept so basic.

It's also easy to see that the developers had a hell of a lot of fun making QuickSpot. The game's got a crazy style and the pictures have so many clever and cool winks to Namco's old-school games. Even the end credits have been integrated into the game design. And the soundtrack is pretty wild, too, with peppy and upbeat versions of public domain classical music like Ave Maria and Joy to the World. And for those who want some player competition, there's a fun single-cartridge, four player wireless mode to see who can circle the differences the fastest.

But, yes, even with the game modes both available from the start as well as unlocked, QuickSpot is very limited in gameplay variety. It's meant as a casual game for quick shots of fun, not as an extensive, engrossing experience. And as this type of game, it succeeds.

The Verdict

Last year I scoffed at the idea of a touch-screen version of Point Blank on the Nintendo DS, and Namco proved that the idea could work on the system. That same mindset went into this review of QuickSpot. There's not much to the game other than glancing at the top screen and circling portions of the image on the touch screen. But Namco did a really good job injecting variety into this simple, easy to grasp concept that still might not be enough for the hardcore gamer...but for those who love the occasional "casual game" experience, Namco's design turned out surprisingly decent.